VICO Enea

(Parma 1523 – Ferrara 1567)

Italian numismatic, writer, draftsman and engraver, active first in Rome, then in Florence, Venice and in the last period in Ferrara. He was born in a noble family. Unfortunately, his mother died at Enea’s birth and his father died when he was only two years old.
After acquiring a first literary and artistic training in Parma and having learnt the principles of drawing from Giulio Romano models, Enea moved to Rome in 1541. Here Enea firstly worked for Tommaso Barlacchi, the printer who appeared at his side as an engraver in a wonderful series of grotesques published in 1542 and later for the publisher Salamanca. In the classical and erudite climate of the city his style has been refined on the models of Perin del Vaga and Francesco Salviati, still interpreted according to Parmigianino’s lesson.
After having assimilated the lessons of the great master engravers, such as Marcantonio Raimondi, Agostino Veneziano, Jacopo Caraglio and Giulio Bonasone, he acquired a personal style that led him to realize his best prints. After a stay in Florence at the court of Cosimo I, Enea Vico moved to Venice where, according to Vasari, he arrived in 1557.
Later in 1563 he passed to Alfonso d’Este’s service in Ferrara, remaining there until his death in August 1567.